HoUinger Corp. 

pH8.5 



HoUinger Corp. 
pH 8.5 



23 

72 
py 1 



INVINCIBLE AMERICA 

A Plan of Constructive Defence 



By Harry G. Traver 



Published by 

The Provisional Committee of 

The Society of Constructive Defence 

Ridge wood, New Jersey 



Copyright 19 15 
by Harry G. Traver 






f 

;)CI.A4l671t 



W 20 1915 



^"^ 



\^1^ 



FOREWORD 

Some there are who would abandon our 
army and navy entirely and who advocate 
peace at any price. 

Others would arm our country to the teeth 
with a great standing army of hundreds of 
thousands costing hundreds of millions yearly. 

This booklet outlines a practical plan for a 
great industrial army of trained men always 
available which will afford the largest pos- 
sible protection without the usual waste of 
men and money. Every thinking American 
should read it. It has received the endorse- 
ment of many prominent army men and 
engineers. 



How America can have a large army of 
trained men without waste of men and money. 

There are two sides to the army question. Peace advo- 
cates ask why we should maintain a hundred thousand 
men in practical idleness, waste their time on useless 
effort, waste the money spent on their equipment and 
maintenance and develop a large class of men who have 
few ideals except to kill the enemies of their country. 

The advocates of a large army ask: how can we be pre- 
pared to defend our great country with its thousands of 
miles of coast line, our cities and our homes without keep- 
ing up a large army and a proper reserve who are trained 
to fight? How can we, they ask, ignore the fact that great 
nations call treaties "only scraps of paper"? How can 
we defend the Monroe Doctrine? How can we maintain 
our National dignity when great disputes arise? How 
can we defend ourselves from a foreign foe who may land 
on our shores with a great army when we have barely 
fifty thousand men to-day who could take the field? That 
number is scarcely larger than a single army corps of the 
nations now engaged in the death struggle in Europe. As 
for the protection offered us by the Atlantic Ocean, dis- 
tances to-day are so short on water that two of the chief 
naval battles of the present war were fought twice as far 
away from Europe as the distance across the Atlantic. 

All attempts to solve this problem have failed. Thou- 
sands of earnest and patriotic men in the state militia 
and in the regular army have labored faithfully against 
serious difficulties to build up dependable organizations, 
and in many cases they have succeeded. In the Civil 
War and in the Spanish-American War there were units 
which performed wonderful services. But there has been 
a tremendous change in the conditions of warfare since 
that time. To send a small army of militia who are 
unaccustomed to the hardships of war against the sea- 
soned and well trained troops of other great nations 
would be nothing more than criminal slaughter. To send 

5 



the regular army is out of the question, as it contains at 
present only 86,000 men in all, most of whom are neces- 
sary to defend the insular possessions and to man the 
fortifications and army posts. 

Now the regular army already costs $100,000,000 per 
year, or $1,160 per year per man, which is from two to 
four times the cost per man of the army of any other 
nation. The militia, too, is very expensive, though it is 
not completely trained nor equipped for active service. 
To increase the regular army and the militia to what is 
considered adequate size, and to place each in a proper 
condition for service, will cost this country at least 
$400,000,000 per year, or more than any other country 
on earth. To remedy the existing defects and to meet the 
needs of the United States for an adequate army without 
wasting a dollar or a man is the object of the new system 
here offered. 

The new system consists simply in developing on a large 
scale the method found so successful in building the great 
Panama Canal, namely, place the great reclamation pro- 
jects, the great road building schemes, the great Missis- 
sippi River Improvement and other great and much 
needed public works under the control of the U. S. Army 
Engineers. Give these engineers an army of young men 
who can handle a pick and shovel, live in the open, drive 
mules, load wagons, operate motor trucks, and do such 
work and live such a life as that required of a soldier. 
That the army engineers built and completed successfully 
and economically the greatest engineering feat of modern 
times at Panama, after other agencies had failed, is suf- 
ficient proof that they are equal to this new task. At 
Panama it was necessary to hire foreign labor on account 
of the climate, but in this country the common soldier can 
do all of the work. 

Soldiers will be enlisted with this end in view from the 
very start. They will constitute a vast industrial army 
under the control of the war department; there will be 
important work for every man from the officer down to 
the rawest recruit; and all the men being profitably em- 
ployed, it will be possible to maintain an army of five 
hundred thousand or more with a mere fraction of the 
loss and waste that is common under our present system. 

These men will be enlisted for a period of several years. 

6 



The pay and other conditions will be made attractive 
enough to get sufficient good men and no more. The work 
will be conducted under the regular discipline of the 
army. The men will live in portable houses or camps at 
the various places where the work is being done through- 
out the country. The outdoor work and life will tend to 
harden the men to the life of a soldier. Every day an 
hour or more will be devoted to drill and other military 
training. On Saturdays extensive manoeuvres will be 
practiced. Here then, in a nutshell is the scheme which 
will train a million men in a few years at very little more 
expense than the cost of the great engineering works on 
which the men are employed. 

That a limited amount of practical, but thorough train- 
ing is very effective in time of war was proven by the ex- 
perience of the Germans a century ago. In 1809 the Ger- 
mans were crushed by Napoleon, who forced them to 
agree to limit their army thereafter to forty-two thousand 
men. Germany kept her word, but cleverly arranged her 
system so that the men only served for a short time and 
then gave place to others. Thousands upon thousands 
were put through the army quickly, and out again, till 
Germany soon had a vast array of trained men ready to 
help accomplish the down-fall of Napoleon in 1815. 

The great public works herein contemplated are such as 
have been discussed and advocated for many years. We 
Americans have a tremendous country, yet there is not 
to-day a single highway extending from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific worthy of the name. The roads of the west 
and of the south are abominable. Even in the east where 
millions have been spent on roads in recent years, only the 
main thoroughfares are suitable for modern traffic. The 
annual losses due to bad roads in America run into mil- 
lions and millions of dollars. The days of the motor truck 
and the automobile are here. Farmers, truckmen, and 
business men all over this country are crying out for better 
roads. So far there has been but feeble answer. To build 
these roads will cost thousands of millions. There is no 
agency so capable for this great task as the National 
Government. Road building by the various counties and 
states has resulted to-day in a heterogeneous system of 
roads of all kinds and in all conditions which are in most 
cases supervised by politicians who have little knowledge 
of road engineering and in consequence the work has been 



turned over in many cases to selfish contractors whose 
business it is to get enormous profits and put into the roads 
as little as possible of material and labor. The idea of 
making a road that would be durable for years to come is 
of no interest to them. There are engineers in the U. S. 
Army who can build roads as fine as any of the world 
They are not handicapped by political affiliations. They 
are not burdened with a selfish desire to squeeze out the 
profit of a fat contractor. They are governed by the iron 
clad rule of army discipline. The simple, practical, and 
economical solution of the highway problem is to turn it 
over to the U. S. Army. 

The Mississippi and Ohio River Systems call for effec- 
tive and immediate improvement. The direct annual loss 
from floods runs into millions, to say nothing of tre- 
mendous indirect losses to trade and transportation. This 
great work will cost at least five hundred million dollars. 
The present annual losses would more than pay the in- 
terest on the entire cost of the work. The territory in- 
volved covers many states. No state can or should under- 
take it. It is outside the field of private enterprise. The 
National Government, alone, has the necessary authority 
and the financial ability to handle it. Much of the work 
which has been done up to date has been done as a politi- 
cal sop to the various sections through which these rivers 
pass. The work should be taken out of politics and turned 
over to the U. S. Army Engineers. If they do as well as 
they did at the Panama, the whole nation will rejoice. 

The great Reclamation Projects have proved the ability 
of the U. S. Government to carry on great works of this 
character. During ten years the area of irrigated land in 
this country was doubled, largely through these Govern- 
ment irrigation systems. Who knows what might be ac- 
complished if the army were put into this field for twenty 
years? This work should be continued and enlarged by 
the industrial army. 

There are other great works needing attention, though 
not quite so urgent. The Inland Coastwise Canal along 
the Atlantic Seaboard, the draining of the vast swamp 
areas, the improvement of the national forests, and the 
building of the new Government railway in Alaska, can 
all be done by the new army. 

Not only can the National Government do this work 
efficiently, but by purchasing supplies in enormous quan- 



tides, it can do the work more economically than the small 
contractors can in local districts. 

What kind of an army will this system produce? It 
must necessarily produce the best army in the world. No 
army in history has been so effective as the army com- 
posed of citizen soldiers when they were properly trained 
and physically able to endure the hardships of war. Our 
new industrial army will be an efficient force, well trained, 
always mobilized, always ready. It will be made up of 
hearty young fellows, accustomed to hard life in the open. 
They can stand the rain and snow, the cold and heat. 
They will be accustomed to the use of pick and shovel, 
to earth works, to concrete construction, to motor trucks, 
automobile tractors, and other machinery. They w^ill be 
used to discipline, to working in squads, both large and 
small units. They will develop individual initiative. 
They will be accustomed to being shifted about from 
place to place, to hard physical labor, to hard foot and leg 
work and to carrying necessary equipment. The officers 
will be men who can really command, who as foremen, 
superintendents, and managers of departments, have seen 
real field service. They will be officers who can take re- 
sponsibility and who have been weighed in the balance 
and not found wanting. 

This army will be put through military drill an hour or 
-more every day except Sunday. On Saturday it will prac- 
tice field manoeuvres and once each year it will take part 
in large units in operations on a large scale. There will be 
an educational department, wherein the men can study 
certain fundamental things necessary to the ideal life of 
a soldier. This will include hygiene, first aid to the in- 
jured, geography, horsemanship, motor-truck driving, 
track laying, bridge work and military tactics. 

A man who can successfully drive a motor truck in 
building a wagon road would make an ideal man to drive 
the same truck in time of war. The ability to get there 
promptly under adverse conditions, and to keep his truck 
moving properly, are the requirements in each case. The 
same may be said of handling teams, wagons, and sup- 
plies. A man who can dig ditches and drains for roads 
and culverts can dig trenches. Battles are not always 
fought on macadamized roads. They are more likely to 
be fought on rain-soaked fields, over ditches, hills and 
valleys, through ice and snow, across streams and through 

9 



difficulties in general more like those of the road builder 
than anything else. Battles are never fought on the dance 
floor of a regimental armory nor on the well-kept lawns 
of an army post. It is said the life of a horse or a motor 
truck in the present European War is often not more than 
a week, and that at the beginning of the war this was often 
due to carelessness in handling or to the inability of inex- 
perienced men to make slight adjustments. How foolish 
it is, then, to put trucks in charge of any but men trained 
to handle them in actual service. 

The men of our industrial army would travel about the 
country more or less, and would become familiar with the 
climate, topography, local customs, and other conditions 
of the different sections of the country, so that in time of 
invasion there would be officers and men in every regi- 
ment familiar with the physical difficulties to be met with 
and they would avoid such disasters as those of history, 
which were caused by ignorance of local conditions. 
Napoleon's disastrous retreat from Moscow and his de- 
feat at Waterloo would not have happened to our in- 
dustrial army. 

The soldiers of this army will be paid better wages than 
the present regular army, and they will earn the money. 
Their food and other supplies will be suitable for men 
doing hard physical labor and living out-of-doors. Their 
houses will be portable structures quickly moved from 
place to place. No more army posts should be built like 
the present establishments, except to be used as places of 
storage for army supplies. 

What would be the mental and moral development of 
these men? Better than at present. Men who are 
engage in a great enterprise will have a higher sense of 
self-esteem and a greater personal interest in their work 
than they have if they spend their time in the ordinary 
monotonous routine of army life. Unfortunately there 
has often been a prejudice against the soldier in uniform 
in time of peace. Congress even passed a law in 191 1 
forbidding discrimination against the uniformed soldier 
by theatres and other places of entertainment. When 
these men are engaged on great public works and paid 
reasonable wages they will be respected and esteemed as 
highly in time of peace as in time of war. 

10 



Under the old system men often find it difficult to get 
work after their discharge from the army because their 
whole life in the service has made them unadapted either 
by experience or disposition to work in civil life. Under 
the new system the men will gain practical knowledge 
of many useful trades. Regular habits of industry and 
the rigid discipline of their training will make them the 
best and most efficient workers for civil life. Employers 
are always seeking men who have such habits and train- 
ing at good wages 

A Great National Reserve will develop from this army. 
Men should serve in the regular army for the period of 
their enlistment and they may then re-enlist at advanced 
pay or be retired to the first reserve, which will meet 
yearly for the manoeuvres. They will have their expenses 
paid during this meeting and will be paid for their time. 
The reserve is subject to call only in time of war. After 
serving for a period of years in the first reserve, they will 
then be retired to the second reserve, which is not called 
out unless the first reserve is inadequate. 

This system need not be installed all at once. Like the 
rural free delivery it can be started on a small scale and 
increased gradually till it supersedes the present army. 

The individual states may keep their present system of 
militia till the National Army is well established and 
work progressing on many projects. They will then either 
abandon the state militia entirely or copy the National 
Army for state use. 

Some work will be done in every state, but only as part 
of a comprehensive plan wherever and whenever most 
needed and according to plans worked out under the 
efficient eyes of the Army Engineers; not in the ex- 
travagant fashion of the annual river and harbor appro- 
priations. Thus will be found a solution of the old pork 
barrel system from which most of our congressmen will 
be glad to get away, if it can be done gracefully. Here is 
their chance. 

A Balance Wheel to National Industry can be created 
out of this industrial army. The time is now here when 
something more effective than the present methods must 
be provided to cope with the problem of the unemployed 
during periods of business depression. The new army 
system ofifers a practical solution, for the same reason that 

11 



it solves the problems of great public improvements, 
namely, because only the National Government is large 
enough to handle the proposition. 

A watch needs a balance wheel to make its movements 
regular. Likewise a clock needs a pendulum. A water- 
works needs a reservoir to conserve the supply over 
periods of plenty and scarcity. A farmer provides barns 
and feed to carry his stock over periods of non-produc- 
tion. A successful business house keeps on hand or in 
bank a reserve supply of cash to protect it during periods 
of reduced income. But a great nation with ninety mil- 
lions of people has never taken the trouble to provide a 
practical method of absorbing its surplus labor during 
slack times, nor thought it worth while to care for the idle 
human beings who must be fed and sheltered no matter 
whether employed or not. 

When the stock or bonds of a reputable corporation are 
offered too freely on the stock exchange or fall a few 
points in price, there is started a buying movement which 
''supports the market" and takes up the surplus stock. 
When the country produces more wheat than can be con- 
sumed at home, it is "absorbed" by Europe. When an 
American corporation produces more steel or harvesters, 
sewing machines, or watches than can be sold in the home 
market, they are "dumped abroad." But when a financial 
crisis arises which destroys the confidence of business men 
the country over, nearly everybody gets scared, people 
stop buying goods they can do without, trade falls off, em- 
ployees are discharged by the hundreds and wages fall in 
many industries. There is then a surplus of labor. 

Unfortunately there is no support to the labor market, 
it cannot be "absorbed" by Europe, it cannot be "dumped 
abroad." It cannot even be stored in warehouses like 
surplus cotton and corn. Surplus labor is a living, mov- 
ing, breathing reality different from all other commodi- 
ties. It is composed of human beings who must eat and 
sleep and be clothed, and though we have devised systems 
for disposing of every other kind of surplus, all efforts to 
take care of the surplus labor have proved fruitless. 

As the new reserve banking system was devised to pro- 
vide a balance wheel for the money market by providing 
an elastic currency during varying business conditions, so 
the industrial army can be made to balance the labor 

12 



market. This operation is very simple. Congress or the 
President or the War Department should have power 
during bad industrial periods of increasing the industrial 
army by new recruits in a special class, who are enlisted 
for only a short period, perhaps one year. The number 
of men taken in this way should be limited only by the 
extent of the business depression and the consequent labor 
surplus. It might rise as high as half a million men, but 
would probably never do so. These men should always 
receive the regular military training and should be put 
in the national reserve after their term of enlistment ex- 
pires. They may be released from service in less than 
one year if the regular industries of the country demand 
them sooner. 

Most of the unemployed are single men which makes 
them especially adapted to this system. Employers 
usually aim to keep their oldest, steadiest and best men 
even during dull times, and this includes men generally 
with families. Even married men will be better off to 
join the army temporarily, than to starve or accept charity. 
They will be fed, clothed, and housed in the army and all 
of their wages can be sent home to their families, whom 
they can visit often, as they will not be far from them. 

Only a small number of men will probably be taken 
into the army during a depression. The mere fact that the 
army is ready to employ them is sufficient. When the 
Government puts its stamp on a paper dollar few people 
ever take it to the treasury to have it redeemed. The 
mere fact that the Government is ready to redeem it is 
sufficient. So with labor. When the Government stands 
ready to redeem or employ every man who applies, few 
will apply. Why? Simply because employers will know 
that the sale of their products will not decrease through 
bad business and, therefore, they will keep their em- 
ployees themselves. 

The wages of this special army would not be so high as 
to keep them out of the regular industries when the period 
of depression is passed. It would be a simple matter to 
employ them all, as the army engineers would always have 
projects under way scattered over the entire country on 
which many extra men could be used economically. In 
case of a mere local disturbance, the work can be pro- 
vided only in that particular section. The money for this 
special operation would come from bond issues. During 

13 



industrial depressions much money is withdrawn by timid 
persons from the various channels of trade and either 
hoarded or put into postal savings banks or similar places. 
This money could be at such times invested in Govern- 
ment Bonds and through the expenditures on the special 
industrial army, it would at once flow back into the chan- 
nels of business. 

Here then is the balance wheel for labor. All the men 
who want work and cannot find it elsewhere, can find it in 
the army. If these men do not stop earning, they like- 
wise will not stop consuming. Where there is no stoppage 
of consumption, there can be little stoppage of produc- 
tion. Therefore, the hesitating wheels of industry will re- 
volve and confidence will be quickly restored. If there is 
unlimited demand for wheat, the price of wheat will not 
decline below a certain point. So if there is an unlimited 
demand ready to absorb the surplus labor, wages will not 
decline below a certain level, neither will business men 
become frightened by a financial crisis. They will know 
if all the men in the country are continually employed, 
that the consuming public is ever and always practi- 
cally unchanged. They will know if the materials and 
supplies used in one industry are decreased, that there 
will be a corresponding increase in other lines, for the 
total number of workers in the whole country will not be 
allowed to decrease. 

How much self-respect and manliness will be saved to 
the workers themselves cannot be measured in dollars and 
cents. The army may in this way absorb the men who 
might otherwise become part of the flotsam and jetsam of 
city and town out of a job and out of a home. It will keep 
them out of soup-houses and lodging-houses. It will keep 
them from becoming vagabonds or charity applicants. It 
will give them self-respecting work, and pay them decent 
wages for it, better wages, in fact, than are often paid in 
some industries. Their work will be efficient and effec- 
tive under the discipline of trained officers and according 
to well-defined plans of the army engineers. There could 
be no better work found for men who have lost their grip, 
or lost their jobs than a year under the discipline of the 
industrial army. 

Labor unions will receive practical help from this sys- 
tem, especially those comprising labor which is poorly 
paid and which is most affected by periods of depression 

14 



and by competition of cheap labor. The new system will 
tend to establish a minimum wage, though not in the way 
usually intended and with none of the possible ill efifects 
of a minimum wage law. Employers will profit as well, 
tor if there are no unemployed the purchasing power of 
the public will be unimpaired and there can be no long 
and serious depressions in business such as cripple and 
ruin many an employer at present. 

Suppose it does cost a few hundred millions to operate 
this system, and thereby avert the consequence of a 
financial panic. The money will all go into legitimate 
public improvements which are worth all that they cost, 
national industries will be saved from a long period of 
stagnation, and there will be a great saving to charity, but 
the greatest benefit of all, which cannot be measured in 
money, will be the self-respect and habit of industry 
which will be saved or created for the thousands of men 
who would otherwise become recipients of charity. 

To sum up the advantages of this new army system it 
will: 

1. Provide an adequate standing army. 

2. Provide a suitable trained reserve. 

3. Improve the morale of the soldier. 

4. Build up our great public works. 

5. Fit the soldier for conditions of war. 

6. Provide for surplus labor in hard times. 

7. Relieve one of the causes of depression. 

8. Retain the self-respect of the unemployed. 

9. Give the American people value received for every 
dollar spent on the army. 

This then is the new American Army. Their weapons 
are not weapons of death, but picks and shovels, hammers 
and drills, the tools of thrift and industry, the instru- 
ments of peace. They are conquerors, not of men, but of 
the great forces of nature. Soldiers not of battle, but 
soldiers of the great common good. How every Ameri- 
can bosom will swell with pride at the sight of such an 
army. The pride of every American in the Panama 
Canal will be reflected and re-echoed in every great high- 
way and river from coast to coast. And when the time 
comes, if it does come, to repel a foreign foe, these men 
will be fitted by their training and experience to fight for 
their country as well as any army that ever took the field. 

15 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



005 887 851 



NOTICE 

If you favor this plan for an invincible 
army, pass it on to your friends. Write to 
your Congressman and Senator in Washing- 
ton about it. Send it to every prominent 
public man whom you may know personally. 
Order a few copies and help in the patriotic 
work of distribution. 50 copies mailed post- 
paid for $1.00; 1,000 copies by express pre- 
paid, $15.00. This booklet is copyrighted, 
but publishers may print any part of it upon 
request. 



Hollinge 
pH 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



005 887 851 



